


falling leaves drift by the window

by yeeharley



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Autumn, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Happy, Humor, M/M, Probably the fluffiest thing I've ever written actually, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:00:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeeharley/pseuds/yeeharley
Summary: Harley gets the idea when he’s shopping for their dinner; it’s his night to cook and he’s making the only thing he knows how to- spaghetti. So maybe it isn’t terribly elaborate, or difficult, or special. But he doesn’t want to try to make something that could get him in over his head and end up ruining it, so.Spaghetti.Spaghetti can be romantic, right? Think Lady and the Tramp. Although, when Harley really thinks about it, he’s painfully aware of the fact that Peter is just about the least likely person to share food, even if it’s for romantic purposes.He’s going to have to scratch that, then.So he’s walking into the grocery store, reusable bags under one arm ( no, Harls, we’re trying to save the environment) when he sees them- stack upon stack of bright-orange pumpkins in a large cardboard box beside the sliding doors.(Just a happy moment between two boys who love each other very much)
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 124





	falling leaves drift by the window

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt submitted by Spidey-Reids-2003 on tumblr! Thank you dear <3333  
> My tumblr: silver-bubbles

Harley gets the idea when he’s shopping for their dinner; it’s his night to cook and he’s making the only thing he knows how to- spaghetti. So maybe it isn’t terribly elaborate, or difficult, or special. But he doesn’t want to try to make something that could get him in over his head and end up ruining it, so.

Spaghetti.

Spaghetti can be romantic, right? Think _Lady and the Tramp._ Although, when Harley really thinks about it, he’s painfully aware of the fact that Peter is just about the least likely person to share food, even if it’s for romantic purposes. 

He’s going to have to scratch that, then.

So he’s walking into the grocery store, reusable bags under one arm ( _no, Harls, we’re trying to save the environment)_ when he sees them- stack upon stack of bright-orange pumpkins in a large cardboard box beside the sliding doors.

Rose Hill, ever the redneck town, had been host to an abundance of pick-your-own-pumpkin patches. Harley, his mother, and Abby had gone to the patches and picked out their own every year since he’d been born- as long as he’d remembered. There had been a few years where his father had joined them, but he didn’t like to think about that.

The pumpkin patches were a happy memory. He doesn’t want them ruined by him.

Harley stands outside of the grocery with a basket tucked under his arm, head tilted slightly to one side as he scrutinizes each and every one of the pumpkins in the box. They’re going for two dollars and, since nobody else is in the Halloween spirit yet, he has the pick of the litter.

In the back of his mind, Harley wonders if Peter would want to pick his own. He shrugs it off, heaves two of the biggest, roundest pumpkins off of the top of the pile (this would be a lot easier if his boyfriend was there, because they’re _really heavy_ and Peter is _really strong_ ) before continuing with his dinner shopping.

Maybe the pumpkins will make up for his choice of the most generic dinner food ever made.

⚘

Harley can see the light in their apartment as he pulls up in their shared station wagon and unpacks the back of the car. It glows a warm yellow, welcoming and happy in the chilly October breeze. There's a fuzzy outline bobbing around in the window, and Harley knows who it is- Peter, home from the tower already, probably dancing to some of the stupid country music he'd gotten attached to when they'd started dating.

Harley doesn't even like country music. 

But he definitely likes Peter, so he's willing to let it slide.

He lugs the pumpkins and bags of groceries up the stairs sluggishly, muscles burning from what feels like fifty pounds of vegetables in each arm. The straps of the bags cut into his skin; he's never regretted choosing a top-floor apartment more.

But Peter had wanted the view, so it's worth it.

He does a lot of things out of his love for Peter.

Their door is decorated with the usual orange and yellow Autumn paraphernalia (gifts from May and Harley's mother, Macy). Harley slams his foot against the reinforced brass across the bottom of its frame; Peter had kicked through it trying to open it and they'd learned their lesson. 

Footstops faintly echo under the door. Harley waits patiently, grimacing as the pumpkins feel heavier and heavier, tapping his foot against the carpet. 

Peter, for a superhuman being with incredible speed and strength, is really taking his time.

At long last, he opens the door, and even though the so-called 'honeymoon phase' has long since worn off, Harley can't help but smile at the bright grin that lights up his face. His hair is flat on one side and curly on the other like he's just woken up from a nap; the lack of dark circles under his eyes add to that theory.

"You brought pumpkins!" Peter screeches, ripping said pumpkins out of Harley's grip and securing one in each arm. "Oh my God, Harley, pumpkins!"

"Yep," Harley chuckles, brushing past him to set the bags of groceries down on the kitchen table. "And spaghetti dinner."

" _Pumpkins!"_

"And dinner."

But the dinner seems to have been long forgotten, because Peter has eyes for nothing but the pumpkins now sitting on their counter next to the sink. He looks so excited that Harley lets it go, tucking anything that will spoil without refrigeration into its proper place before making his way through their cluttered kitchen to Peter's spot at the sink.

"We're going to carve them, right?" Peter asks. He's already looking for a knife, digging through their drawers when he knows well and good that Harley's hidden every blade from him and his nightmares (he sleepwalks and sleep-attacks people, enough said about that, moving on). 

"Of course we are."

"I'm going to make mine _so scary,_ oh my _God_ , it's going to be awesome-"

Harley leans over and plants a kiss on Peter's temple, brushing a loose curl out of his face. 

"Do I not get a hug for being the best boyfriend ever and bringing you pumpkins?" He asks- good-naturedly, he might add, but there's definitely a need for hugging in this apartment and it hasn't been satisfied yet.

Peter's burrowing into his arms within seconds. Harley's actually pushed backwards with the force as Peter buries his nose in the crook of his neck, still laughing from excitement. He only has time to wrap a single arm around him before his arms are empty again, Peter gravitating straight back to the two pumpkins. He's practically bouncing on his toes, nervous energy abundant, and Harley realizes that if they don't carve the pumpkins, there's a good chance that Peter could break something.

"Okay, okay. We can carve them."

Harley reaches into a lower drawer and pulls out a pair of large knives, placing them gently on the counter and pushing them away from the edge so they don't fall and accidentally kill someone. Peter grabs a sharpie from their self-painted mug of pens and pencils before going to work on the pumpkin that he seems to have deemed his, scribbling out eyes and a nose and a mouth with an engineers precision. 

It's precise. Not attractive. But hey, Harley figures, Peter isn't an artist. 

This is for fun. It doesn't have to look good.

With one last affectionate look toward his boyfriend- he's sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, that's so _cute-_ Harley bends over and uncaps the lid of his own marker.

He's never wanted to be an artist, but he does know how to draw and use angles and straight lines (ironic, _ha_ ) in a way that Peter definitely doesn't. The face of his pumpkin takes shape slowly- a pair of parallelograms for eyes, a narrow rectangle for a mouth, no nose. In a set of quick movements, he outlines the entire face with a series of carefully-interlocked lines before adding a few more details.

And... done!

"Ta-da!" Harley chirps, stepping back from his pumpkin with a flourish. "He's amazing! He's spectacular! A show-stopping marvel of architecture, mechanics, and whoop-ass fighting techniques! He's-"

" _Iron Man Harley you drew Iron Man oh my God oh my-"_

Harley stifles a laugh as he nods and scrutinizes Peter's design, which looks like a goblin and a puddle of goo had a child together and threw it off the top of a mountain. Peter, however, isn't at all concerned with his own pumpkin. He can't look away from Harley's and, from the way his face is turning a disturbingly dark shade of red, he isn't breathing.

"This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen," Peter says, laughing as he picks it up to have a closer look. The shining light in his eyes is enough to make the fifteen minutes it took for Harley to get up the stairs more than worth it.

"Thanks, babe," Harley says. He leans in to sneak another kiss, this time on the tip of Peter's nose, before trying to think of something nice to say about his pumpkin. "Yours is... definitely scary. Good job."

Peter laughs and shakes his head. "It wasn't supposed to look good, stop stepping on eggshells. You should've been an artist, Harls."

"But then how would I have met you?"'

" _Awwwww,_ you big _sap._ "

Then, in the biggest turnaround since Kylo Ren died in Star Wars, Peter turns around and flips the knife into his palm, twisting it around his fingers and _slamming_ it into the top of the pumpkin. Harley grimaces and steps backward minutely (Peter with a knife is absolutely terrifying and he is in no way interested in getting impaled on this fine night).

"Be careful," he cautions as Peter saws his way around the top of the pumpkin. He wants nothing more than to step in and maybe take the knife? Maybe? But that would be an example of not trusting his very capable partner and that would be bad. Right? Yeah. Bad.

Plus, he doesn't really want to get his fingers cut off, either.

So he just takes the knife and, keeping a careful watch on Peter to make sure no blood appears, starts to decapitate his own work of art. 

They work in silence for a few minutes, the sound of frustrated humming and blades the only sound in the apartment. Harley finishes faster than Peter but again, in the pretense of not making him feel bad, he stays turned around until Peter finishes.

That turns out to be a mistake.

One minute, he's staring down at the sharpied Iron Man face on his pumpkin. The next there's the feeling of something slimy and cold dripping down the back of his shirt and leaving a cold trail of _something_ on his spine.

A wad of pumpkin guts hits the tile floor.

Peter snickers.

 _This is why you aren't supposed to be nice all the time,_ Keener.

"That's disgusting, Parker," Harley deadpans, shuddering as he turns around. "Absolutely disgu-"

And he's being hit in the face with another wad of pumpkin guts. Some of it _actually gets inside his mouth, and it's so salty and slimy and there are_ seeds. Seeds. Seeds in his mouth. Dear God, there are seeds in his mouth.

Harley stands there for a moment, gathering up the courage to spit it out of his mouth. Peter's still grinning at him like a moron, hands covered in pumpkin sludge, and he bites his lip in excitement because _he knows Harley isn't going to take this._

Damn right, he isn't.

Harley's reaching into the pumpkin before he can blink, gathering up a wad of _yuck_ and forming it into a sort of snowball. Peter squeaks and makes as if he's going to duck, but _that's not going to fly_.

After all, he wasn't going to throw it. He knows better than that.

It takes Harley two long strides to step across the kitchen and gather a giggling Peter up in one arm. Even though he knows he could definitely beat him, Peter doesn't struggle much more than he does when they're play-fighting. He just laughs and screams shrilly as Harley smashes the pumpkin-snowball straight into his hair, mashing it into his curls with an open hand.

"Harley, _no-_ " Peter shrieks, reaching up to bury a hand in his hair. " _Har-ley!_ "

But Harley's laughing too hard now, pulling him up into a two-armed hug that lifts him off of the ground and holding him close to his chest. He's close to tears, really- he hasn't done this since he was so _young,_ since it had been Abby and Macy and Harley Keener. Since Rose Hill. 

Since his father had left.

"I love you," he sniffs, rubbing circles into Peter's shoulders even though he smells like pumpkin and that's kind of _gross._ "I love you so much, Peter. So much."

Peter hugs him back, lifting his legs off of the floor and wrapping them around his waist before carding one hand through Harley's hair. "I love you too, Harley."

A pause.

And then there's pumpkin in his hair, and Peter's laughing, and Harley's laughing, and their apartment is filled with laughing and light and happiness and _good things._

They go to bed smelling like pumpkin. Apparently, three respective shampoo jobs isn't enough to get that out.

Neither of them really care, though.


End file.
